| Description | Manuscripts of note:
Nos 1 to 67 Letters to William Sharpey, Secretary, Royal Society. 1853-1869 and undated material.
Nos 1 to 48 and 50 to 62 are written by Edward Sabine during his terms of office as Treasurer (1850-1861) and President (1861-1871) of the Royal Society.
The correspondence mostly concerns the internal workings of the Royal Society, with topics discussed including the 'Catalogue of Scientific Memoirs', the Great Melbourne Telescope, the composition of the Council of the Royal Society, the finances of the Society, the Government Grant Committee and the Society's move from Somerset House to Burlington House.
(For more background on this correspondence see M Boas-Hall, 'All Scientists Now: The Royal Society in the Nineteenth Century', Cambridge: CUP, 1984)
Nos 95 to 100 Correspondence between Walter White and William Sharpey, on the removal of the Royal Society's books from Somerset House to Burlington House. 1856
Nos 102 to 118 Correspondence relating to the Southern Hemisphere Telescope. 1853-1859
Including papers from the Southern Telescope Committee.
Nos 119 to 121 Letters from Sir Joseph Banks, 1793-1816
One letter from Banks to George Douglas, 16th Earl of Morton, on Leopold I becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society; two letter from Banks to George Leonard Staunton, thanking Staunton for sending botanical samples to him.
These letters are not referenced in 'The Banks Letters: A Calendar of the manuscript correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks preserved in the British Museum, British Museum (Natural History) and other collections in Great Britain', ed. Warren Dawson, London, 1958. |